https://www.ft.com/content/cee5f3a8-21ab-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b
"Aldo Sánchez surveys a field of lofty banana trees, with cacao plants bursting
with fruit nestled beneath. “Two and a half years ago, this was pure pasture,”
he says. Indeed, his neighbour’s field is just grass.
Four decades ago, a swath of land including his farm in Jabillos in central
Costa Rica was deforested to plant coffee. It was later turned over to cattle,
but ranching dried up when prices collapsed. Cacao — the raw material for
chocolate — had not been planted since the late 1970s, when the monilia fungus
wrecked 80 per cent of the national crop.
“Even 10km away, people couldn’t believe we were planting cacao because the
last people to do that were their grandparents,” Mr Sánchez says.
His farm is a successful example of agroforestry — the sustainable combination
of crops with trees — that is complementing Costa Rica’s remarkable
reforestation in the past three decades."
Via The Fixer March 23, 2022:
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/costa-rica-agroforestry-farmers/
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
